BP has given up on using robots to stop its leaking Gulf of Mexico oil well, but hopes that a giant dome lowered over the well could stem most of the flow by Monday.
A ?containment? dome arrived at the site on Thursday and was lowered 60m above the leak on Friday
The news came as ratings agency Standard & Poor’s revised BP’s outlook to negative, indicating a rating downgrade to AA is more likely over mounting clean-up costs.
The oil company is burning millions of dollars a day as 5,000 barrels per days of oil gushes in the sea, after a rig operated by its contractor Transocean sunk killing 11 people two weeks ago.
A “containment” dome arrived at the site on Thursday and was lowered 60m above the leak on Friday, while the sea bed was checked for debris.
The best way of stemming the flow is drilling a relief well, but this will take three months to complete. BP said on Friday that the oil spill response team has so far recovered about 30,000 barrels of oil-water mix.
The Obama administration has put off plans for expanding offshore drilling until a full review of the Gulf spill has taken place.
However, the US regulator said on Friday there were “no urgent” safety problems on the deepwater rigs it has been inspecting in the Gulf of Mexico this week.
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